She Waits
by philaqueen
Summary: [Charlie x Briggs] [one-shot] She waits for him every night that he doesn't return before her.


She waits for him every night that he doesn't return before her. Something inside her knows that she shouldn't, and something inside her wants to believe that she doesn't still love him, and that she doesn't still care about him, but every time the sun sets, and the rest of the roommates go to bed, she waits for him.

Most nights she stays in the living room with her laptop. She usually tells the roommates that she has something to work on for a case, or that she's doing some early Christmas shopping, and she takes a silent sigh of relief when she knows that none of them have caught on yet. Of course they all know her history with him, but she's supposed to be over him. They're colleagues now, and that's all it's supposed.

On other nights, she tries to sleep, though her attempts to slip into unconsciousness are usually thwarted by the feeling of her heart beating in her chest and her palms beginning to sweat. While she's not trying to, she knows she is subconsciously waiting to hear the front door open...waiting to hear the sound of his shoes on the hardwood floor...waiting to hear him sigh or mumble something under his breath while goes upstairs to put his gun away.

Sometimes while she lays in bed waiting for him, her dark hair strewn out against the pillow and her head turned to look out at the night sky, her fingers subconsciously skim across her stomach where she used to carry his baby. Touching where she knew life was once growing inside her always made her think.

Would their baby have been a boy or a girl? Would she be a little tomboy with her father's dark curls and a desire for adventure, or would he be a quick-witted smooth talker like his mother? It would have been beautiful; it would have been the last physical piece of what they had once. It probably would have even been the catalyst to them starting over.

After all of those thoughts, she knows the idea of sleep is a lost one, and she usually ends up back in the living room where she waits for him on the couch.

And every time she waits for him, she lets out a nearly silent, shaky sigh when he comes home.

Sometimes he looks tired and drawn out...sometimes his clothes have spatters of blood on them and his dark hair looks matted and dirty, but every time he comes home he's alive and breathing.

He never says anything when he first comes through the door, and neither does she. They always look at each other, but they don't say a verbal hello. Despite the lack of greeting though, they always end up together. Some nights he sits next to her and lets her lay her head on his shoulder...some nights he tells her about his long day, and she does the same to him...and some nights, on a particularly brutal day, he comes home, lays his head in her lap, and cries. She knows she's one of the only ones he'll cry to, and she makes sure to wipe away his tears for him while she swears her secrecy.

Their late night bonding never went past the point of close friendship; after all they'd been through in the past year, they hadn't been able to connect like they once did. But she knows that day could eventually come. What she doesn't know is if she wants it to.

Something inside her still loves him, no matter what she wants to feel. He never says it, but she knows something inside him feels the same way. She can see it when he tosses her a glance over his shoulder while he pours his morning coffee every day. She can see it when she leaves the house and she can see the concern written all over his face. She'd always been able to read him like a book, much more than any of the others could anyway.

She sees a different side of him that she loves. Through all of his mistakes, and through all of his flaws, she sees another part of him that is hidden down deep. He _is_ capable of love, and he loved her. It was written in his eyes.

That's why she waits for him every night. That's why she needs to know he's okay before she can get a second of sleep. And every time he comes through the door and sits with her, whether it's a night that he cries in her lap or a night that she cries on his shoulder, he always tells her the same thing.

"We're okay, Chuck."

* * *

 _ **A/N:**_ **As most of you probably are, I'm distraught about the cancellation. I wish we would have at least gotten one more season to get some closure. I loved the S3 finale, but I definitely didn't want that to be the way the series ended :( Graceland may be gone but hopefully we can keep it alive through writing.**

 **The second chapter of Bullet Proof is also still in the works. This was just a little one-shot.**


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